when we think about our carbon footprint we often think about reducing energy use and switching to renewable sources but the food we eat has an impact on the environment too in fact 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions come from food loss and waste but thankfully this challenge hasn't gone unnoticed by the businesses who are responsible for moving our food from Farm to fork in fact it's leading to a new era of innovation in the Cal chain sector cold chain industry and The Operators the manufacturers like us do a lot for bringing into the marketplace solutions that are making the whole chain more protected and working better and preserving the foods and this Innovation isn't just making the food transport industry more effective at what it already does so we decided to become self-sufficient and invest in renewable energy and and look at energy as a whole on how we can become self- sustainable and that's why we invested into solar for the specific need to make sure we've got contingency you just heard from clao zundo president of Thermo King EMA and renier Dupris CEO at Digis sixs I'm Dominique Silva and you're listening to healthy spaces the podcast exploring how technology and Innovation are transforming the spaces where we live learn work and play in this episode we will learn about the crucial role of Innovative Technologies in reducing food waste and enhancing the sustainability of Supply chains we'll also explore how Solutions like ktic energy recovery systems are making significant strides in decarbonizing the L haul transport sector while also improving food security [Music] first off we hear from claudo about why food loss is beyond just an environmental problem as of today 10% of the global CO2 emissions are linked to food loss it's something we all have an ethical need to act for reducing if you consider that uh almost half of all the fruits and vegetables that are produced every year in a country in in a huge region like Europe wasted on annual basis 50% is huge and it's an incredible amount of food that is wasted and uh 10% of the edible the entire edible food loss or waste is happening during the distribution phase if you start piling up all those bits and pieces that are even not bits and pieces but are huge amounts of losses you reach incredible quantities that are lost and wasted every year if we we talk about our planet with more than six billion people and you consider that onethird of the global population is in a way or in another suffering from food insecurity there is a huge quantity of food that is wasted that could be channeled for helping people that today struggle to have a warm meal for their families so it's something beyond the business it's something really ethical and it's something that uh I think inmo King myself personally we feel strongly as a need and an area where to act with the maximum urgency there's the human absurdity let's call it you know so many people are going hungry so many families are experiencing food insecurity and yet we're wasting up to 30% of food that we're we're producing I love that you brought in the economic aspect because we talk a lot about that in the podcast right around you know sustainability isn't just in a trend it's a fashion it's a new way of doing things and so there is value right for companies to adopt more sustainable practices but Claudio let's dig in deeper around this 10% it sounds small right just 10% of food losses during distribution but it's humongous if you think about the thousands if not millions of tons every year that go to waste so what is the role that you believe that the Cal chain plays in minimizing or or even eliminating these losses the uh cold chain industry and The Operators the manufacturers like us do a lot for bringing into the marketplace solutions that are making uh the old chain more protected and working better and preserving the foods then it's important that the operators of the logistic operators are adopting those Solutions we have already in our product lineup products that can respond to the demand of how to make the cold chain more efficient more sustainable because uh I talked about the uh food loss but the food loss is connected also with the emissions because losing if you are losing you're wasting 50% of the fruits and vegetables well you will have to transport twice you will have to duplicate and multiply by two the CO2 emissions driven by the trucks vans trailers that are moving on the roads so what are the products that today can help the first one is the axle power the Axel power is a solution that we have developed with a German Axel manufacturer BPW and we put our deep knowledge into electric and electronics Axel power works as an energy recovery system fitting on a trailer you have an axle that is recovering the kinetic energy of the vehicle when the vehicle is breaking and this energy is recharging a battery that we manufacture in termo King and the battery is then powering the TRU unit that is refrigerating the Box the entire Trader we have extensively tested this solution around all the Yia region into very tough conditions from the South African or Central African routs up to to the north of Europe where the climate conditions during winter are particularly tough we traveled now only with the test units more than half a million kilometers we have recovered through this energy recovery system more than 30 megawatt of energy wow so incredible how this simple and smart way to uh use the energy can bring value 30 megaw is a huge amount of energy to recover in such a short time even for large trucks but what about smaller fleet vehicles what's being done for trucks and bands all which play a crucial Last Mile role in the supply chain we are investing a lot for bringing Innovations into the marketplace especially in a moment where a lot of our customers are moving toward electric vehicles so when you move toward an electric vehicle you need to have also Refrigerated unit that are perfectly adapting to the new needs of a BV and what are the main needs basically Energy Efficiency so you need to have a unit that is saving energy as much as possible because typically the energy is taken from the battery of the vehicle you need to be light so you need to gain weight efficiency you need of course to help the CO2 emission during the entire life cycle of the unit so that's why we have developed the eer that is new product line that is exactly fitting and is expressly designed for this kind of needs it an overall a weight efficiency of 50% versus the previous generation of units so weight weight Improvement means less weight to move so less energy consum it and more efficiency for the vehicle and for the shipment of the goods because consider that every kilo that is moved by a van transporting goods into a supermarket do have a certain value but on top of that the lower weight brings also a a longer range so we have patented inverter technology with a variable speed hermetic compressor that we have expressly designed for that mission that is now launched into the market in a unit like the eer 33 tons of CO2 during the life cycle of an lcv van so it's also from a emission point of view it contributes consistently to reduce the overall emission of the single vehicle through a better efficiency through a better payload Etc I think electrification is is a big key word here and it sounds like you believe this is the future to decarbonize the the transport Refrigeration IND industry anything else that you're excited about there is then one additional thing that I want to mention that is helping into the C chain efficiency that is the digital tracking the digital tracking is something that probably it's already part of our daily lives in because we all have one or more devices that are tracked well today the cold chain is uh able to provide full tracking of the products that are transported and the goods that are transported uh whatever is the uh transport mean and the uh digital tracking that is preventing the spoilage of the food during the transport first as I said reduce the risk to lose a cargo during the transport if there is something that is going wrong a temperature that is uh apparently not going into the right direction is not stable is not in the range that is preset by a customer you can immediately intervene you can send a mobile Workshop close to the customer and repairing and assisting and making sure that you guarantee the Cod chain continuity so data and use of data it's another huge way to uh improve our food loss risks that we have today this is a small side note here there was one question which I feel was already addressed claudo but let me just say what the question would be and see if there's anything you want to repeat or or emphasize so it's widely known that electrification of Transport is the way to decarbonize this industry but there are still barriers in the minds of those that need to invest in it right so what do you think some of these barriers are and what is Thermo King doing to overcome them the first one is uh the range that is uh what gives the sense of security to the customer this is something that we are experiencing in our daily life if we running or using a full electric vehicle first of all on this point today we already have solutions that are able to mitigate this sense of security regarding connected with the battery and I mentioned the the axle power that is a fantastic solution that today can already provide the entire energy needed by a Reaper just using the kinetic energy recovered by the vehicle that is waiting the other point is the cost of the solution in that sense we are working very hard for making the payback of our Solutions as short as possible improving the TCO the total cost of ownership of the customers today the axle power that comes with a four years payback for a customer that is roughly 2,800 hours per year over a life cycle of seven year that is a short life cycle in that sense because typically a trailer unit stays into the marketplace for 10 to 12 years so already today we can have a very competitive payback but we are not stopping here because we are working for making even more interesting the selling proposition shortening the payback period and improving the overall TCO and it will be all a matter of progressive adoption because the more this solution will adopted the more customer will demand it and the more the demand will increase the better will be the payback for the customers so that's the uh longer term goal but already today we have really lwh hanging fruits that are making this solution extremely competitive that's a very positive message there claudo and thank you for sharing that so at the time of uh this conversation we're leading up to cop 29 and I heard claudo that you won a lottery ticket and you have been invited to speak at the world stage so for no more than 30 seconds you will have all of the world leaders listening to you what is that one thing you would tell them Claudia food loss is uh not the problem of someone else it's our problem as individuals into the planet is an ethical commitment that we must have each of us for leaving to our kids through the Next Generation a world that is uh simply better than the one we liveed into and today we have already the technology we have already the products for mitigating food loss so it's all about adopting it it's all about being open to embrace the changes and the technological changes each of us can be truly a contributor into that Journey for fighting against the food loss clao makes a great point about how reducing food loss is a collective responsibility and it isn't impossible especially with the technology we already have available but how can Logistic companies Implement new tech and strategies to enhance supply chain efficiency for their clients to answer that we turn now to henier who's going to start us off by explaining what exactly his company theistic does so theistic is very close to Logistics so we enable our Logistics uh strategies of our customers and that's our focus and as CEO of Digis I think it's important that we need to make sure that we can enable our customers needs when it comes to the movement of product between the different locations but also at the same time how can we optimize that specifically in these Economic Times ultimately what we do is is we procure product that they would have selected from um preferred suppliers we would buy the product store the product we will process their orders and then based on the orders that they've placed with us we would then sell it off to their franchisees we will then also collect the cash and pay the creditors for that so we ultimately run the end to-end supply chain for them with regards to sourcing and fulfilling their supply chain needs and are you mostly focused on the food and beverage or the retail sector or what kind of Industries do you mostly specialize in so theistic specializes definitely in the food space with regard to the qsr market but we're also doing some retail work where we could deliver product on behalf of a specific supplier we would deliver to either retail but we try to create a competitive Advantage for our qsr customers by holding the primary product that goes into the qsr market because that optimizes the model and it reduces the touch points within the supply chain but in order to do that they may also want us to then go to retail or other rout to markets like Moms and Pops but they just is part of a bigger business part of superg group so we would try and then channel that through some of our smaller or our different companies that Services the forc court business or the hotel industry or or any other industry within the food sector interesting now one thing that really differentiates Digis from other companies is you've really really made a commitment to sustainability talk us through what led you to make that choice to make such a huge investment sustainability and to really make that a part of a core of who you are operating in Africa you know electricity is a big challenge for us so the Reliance on government institutions to supply electricity is a major concern for us and for our clients so we decided to become self-sufficient and invest in renewable energy and look at energy as a whole on how we can become self-sustainable and that's why we invested into solar for the specific need to make sure we've got contingency because there's just not enough electricity going around but at the same time we're also investing in trucks that operates on batteries which may sound strange because you need electricity for that but the specific Firma King Technology allows us to not actually be on the grit but it's D to create the contingency to address shortages of either fuel or electricity itself but to also be sustainable as a corporate citizen that that that's the responsible thing to do but also from a contingency perspective and of course costs we've managed to reduce costs on electricity but we've also managed to reduce our transport costs so it all started off with sustainability but when we started really looking at it there's much more benefit so you mentioned the Thermo King axle power system there earlier and some of the benefits that your customers are seeing in terms of reduced costs but what other benefits did you see right aside from the cost SA itself that allowed you to further adopt the technology just to put it into context I mean we we've got four vehicles as part of our PC at the moment and those vehicles are running for over a month now with no need to fill up any diesel on running our Refrigeration or our tail lift while that vehicle runs it's quiet technology when you do a delivery and you open up the back door you don't have the fridge that's suddenly running because it needs to keep the load cold it runs off the battery system but that vehicle gets dispatched where the battery level is sitting at about 35% and by the time it gets to its first destination which on average for us on medium to long distance routs is about 2 hours that battery is fully recharged so even though we scarce from an electricity perspective and it's a risk for us this vehicle we've never plugged in because there was no need to plug it in so you save on the diesel side it's much better for the en environment to start off with and you get the cost saving on it and you can operate at early hours in the morning within a residential area where currently with the diesel powered vehicle Refrigeration you can't do that so that's some of the smaller added benefit that we got which we didn't expect to get excellent and the whole pushers as well around electrification you've talked about noise and and self-sufficiency but you just mentioned the urban areas and I just realized what about air pollution as well right so if we can minimize the amount of fossil fuels that we're burning to keep these systems running there is a contribution to People's Health now I continue to be very intrigued uh reier by digesticare being very results metric driven measuring success and at the same time you really proud yourselves on being a disruptor in your industry and disruption comes with having to take some risks so how do you fit these two pieces together I mean if you think about it we timately move boxes we get an order we process it we pick it we deliver it to a restaurant it's very simple if I look at it today today we go as far as bringing back our customers used cooking well we delivered to them in a form basee where they would use that to either make fries or chips or even chicken and then they create waste and then they had to pay somebody to do something with it either make biodiesel out of it or rework it into something else and and we saw the opportunity where our client is contributing to emissions because you've got a Bucky Brigade that's driving around picking up all this used cooking well and we said to them well why don't we provide you with a container that can bring back about 100 L on the same vehicle that would make the delivery initially they thought we're crazy but if you think about it we ended up putting that empty dock below our truck so we're not taking up space where product is meant to go when we get to that first delivery we can then access the truck we collect that used cooking oil that's in a fully loaded drum we then buy the used cooking oil creating value for them at that point they would even then reduce further emissions by not contributing to what the Bucky Brigade would do and then they're benefiting of the fact that we take that use cooking oil back to the our DC we then transport that to a plant that can make biodiesel out of it and then we mix that back into our Fleet by using the HED cooking oil as a blend into our tank we then use a factor of about 7 versus an emission factor of 2.9 so our reduction is is more than threefold when it comes to emissions and the last project we're working on now for them is actually food waste because they still got an element of food waste but you can't bring it back on the same vehicle delivering product so we goingon to most probably partner with a waste company to see how we can then also bring back the cardboard boxes plus the food waste and this is how we try and find Value it's not so much them being reliant on us but it's about us solving their needs and that builds great Partnerships in the wrong run theistic integrative and holistic approach allows them to solve real operational problems for their clients while improving supply chain efficiency and reducing their carbon footprint it's a winwin win for everyone so with Innovation being so core to what they do I asked what's in store for the future of theistic I think renewable technology is starting out I think there's so much opportunity still that's coming I think Battery Technology can definitely improve it can get lighter can store more listening to what's happening around the world it sounds like that's in our new future gas is an opportunity for us for sure our only concern is the constant supply of it I think the future is going to be still having to be very creative at night you know how do you charge a battery if there's no sun the one thing we con considering is using a very small fan technology where um you could charge at night as long as there's a little bit of wind and that's something we can plug on on top of our current solar solution all our Coastal DCS have got solar technology implemented and and it's about 20% of our energy need that we now get off renewable energy and I think that's something we would want to keep on growing to see how high can we get it can we get it to 50% can we get it to 80% and if I think of supply chain people looking at near sourcing and onshoring and there's just so much happening in the space and adding sustainability capability to that and what's happening there I think it's it's the best time to be involved in this as a technology we believe that um it's putting a lot of Industries Under Pressure to think out of the box and we're doing quite a lot of work with our our four Court type businesses where a lot of them are heavily invested into that diesel space and they're also now looking at selling us renew technology so total as an example they're now known as total energies and we're partnering with them to find creative ways on on how do we generate energy and I'm very excited on the firming capability of the triaxle we definitely going to invest in more of those vehicles for the simple reason that it actually delivers what it's meant out to deliver and being a country that don't have a lot of access to electricity while it generates its own electricity and I don't even need to have it grit tied I mean well that's a no-brainer for my final question you are also a leading voice at the global cold chain Alliance so can you tell us a little bit more about what are the big conversations happening around the cold chain industry what are the the biggest concerns or even opportunities that the industry sees on our sustainability path I think food waste is our biggest challenge specifically in Africa I think food waste is so big that it's time that we need to acknowledge that there's a risk I mean there's people that's starving there's Nations that's going under and and I think it's because they just don't have that cold chain infrastructure we've determined as much as 30% of food gets wasted just because there is no cold chain infrastructure and I think the opportunity in Africa is to find ways to create small Refrigeration holding ability or capability in certain countries that can be self- sustainable to avoid the fact that you don't have to waste all that food but I think with opportunity sits is part of of looking at the community and and adding value is how do we create a smaller refrigerated almost off- grit solution uh for some of those communities and I think that's something we're going to definitely want to work with the gcca on and play a role in that as a player within the industry and I think we're also trying to get government support on it because there's a a lot of collaboration on the Free Trade Agreement across Africa I don't think we're going to have three trait to be brutally honest ever because a lot of these countries are reliant on those duties but I do think as business we can add value in the space to address the food shortages because there's children families women suffering just because of the fact that we're not finding creative ways to deal with food waste and I think that's going to be our biggest opportunity in [Music] Africa a big thank you you to clao and reier for joining us on today's episode where we discuss the critical role of Innovative Technologies in reducing food loss and enhancing supply chain sustainability at train Technologies we believe that every job is a sustainability job and every role provides an opportunity for impact that's why each week on the podcast we'll feature how someone is building healthy spaces in their organization or Community this week we're sharing a submission from Kelsey Karu service project administrator in Calgary Canada Kelsey is building healthy Spaces by getting actively involved in local projects that support her community in April she teamed up with Tim Hortons for their smile cookie campaign where she enjoyed decorating cookies at a local Tim Hortons all cookie sales went to various Charities including the Calgary dropin and Rehab Center this made the whole experience super rewarding for her and a great reminder of the joy in helping others Kelsey thank you for sharing your initiatives and thank you for all the hard work you and your team are putting in would you like to share how you're building healthy spaces too well to share your story you can visit us at train technologies.com healthy spaces podcast thank you for listening in to the healthy spaces podcast where we explore how climate technology and Innovation are transforming the space places where we live work learn and play if you want to find out more about our conversation today make sure you check out the show notes and remember to rate and review us in your favorite podcast app that's it for today's episode we'll see you next time [Music]
2024-08-29